Love, Love, Love
by tattoocastiel
Summary: After a traumatic time in France, Castiel becomes voluntarily mute. His mother kicked out of his large house in rural, Nice, France, he and his older brother, Gabriel, and sister, Anna, head towards nowhere, finding themselves in a small city in Italy, where Castiel meets his first boyfriend, Inias, who he dates for six months. Moving to America, Castiel befriends four people.
1. Chapter 1

Dear Whomever Reads This First:

I used to talk. I promise. I talked until I was fourteen, truth be told. I haven't breathed a word for three years, haven't smiled for two and a half. When I was fourteen, when I stopped talking, my brother, Raphael, died in a car accident. It was my birthday and I was with him when it happened. I woke up three days later, and refused to talk after what I had been through. To compensate, my older sister, Anna, my brother, Lucifer, and my mother, Victoire, learned sign language.

Then I saw, one year and three days later I watched my father hit my mother. I stopped smiling at that point. My family tried everything to get me to talk, but I immersed myself in swimming and fencing after that had happened.

At the age of sixteen, my father kicked Maman out of our large house in rural Nice, France. We spent a year on the road, Gabriel, Anna, Maman, and myself. Lucifer was in Greece, Michael moved out with Zachariah. My cousin, Naomi, stayed with Father.

On the road I met a boy named Inias, who worked at a local coffee shop in a town that I stayed in for a long period of time in. We soon dated, after I found a note in my book that I had left on the table as I went to the toilet. When I had come back I found it in my book and sat down and read it.

_Noticed you came by here a lot and I couldn't help but admire. I also noticed you never talked and I think you're insanely attractive. Text me?_

_986-1857_

_-Inias x_

So of course I had turned red, reading it over. I wasn't much, maybe yellow jeans and a studded leather jacket, band shirts and the same winged high tops every day. I was gauges and piercings, recently highlighted blue hair.

So when I got to the motel room I was sharing with Gabriel, he saw the note and grinned, racing into Maman and Anna's room, yelling 'Cassie's gonna get laid!'

I never saw the note again.

So the next day as I went into the coffee shop with my newest book, I went up and smiled at Inias, handing him a slip of paper that read:

_My brother took the note. Dinner?_

_(and ps. surprise me with the drink.)_

And I swear to whoever's up there, his entire face glowed. So we went out for about six months, breaking up simply because it was time for me to move again. This is when we moved to America.

I still kept up with Inias, through email. I did, however, never see him again.

And this is the story of the man who got me to smile, who got me to talk, who got me to become human again.

I hope to see you in another life,

-Castiel Novak

—

The road was dry, the trees were dry, everything was dry, especially Castiel's chapped lips. He licked his lips, his already long fingers playing with a recently stretched gauge- a fourteenth birthday present.

"If you keep doing that, you'll ruin them," Raphael said from the driver's seat of the car, eyes focused on the road ahead of him.

Cas groaned and sat back in his seat, readjusting the seatbelt. The classical music filled the silence between them, making it more bearable, "You know, you weren't even looking at me."

His older brother let out a sharp breath through his nose as the corners of his mouth turned up in somewhat of a smile, accented by a glint in his eye, "Can't tell you all of my secrets yet, little brother."

Castiel was used to those kinds of answers. He looked out the window, listening to the music as he watched the road, lit up by France's September sun.

"Happy birthday, Castiel," Raphael said softly, "And many more."

Looking over at his older brother strangely, Castiel tipped his head to the right, "Thank you," He said, "I actually had a nice time."

Raphael looked over at Castiel, "If I told you I was being paid to be pleasant?"

"You should get a raise," Castiel said, giving him a smile.

Raphael chuckled lightly as he took a turn, heading down the road that would bring them home in roughly fifteen minutes, and maybe one and a half commercial breaks on the radio station.

Silence passed through them, causing Castiel to play with his fingers in attempt to find something to fill it. The oncoming car fixed that.

It was a blur of white sun, blood-stained glass, scratched forearms and screams. A seatbelt burn on Castiel's neck that saved his life, then blackness.

Blackness led to white light that burned against his eyelids, a soft touch of lotioned hands and the smell of antibacterial hand sanitizer. The steady flips of pages in a novel, then went unsteady like the heart rate monitor next to him.

He couldn't move his arm. Where the seatbelt had cut across burned hurt like no rug burn he'd ever gotten before.

"Castiel?" A French voice came from somewhere. He didn't open his eyes, but matched the voice to his mothers. Maman.

The book dropped, page not marked as he felt calloused hands cupping his face. Calloused hands that smelt like toasted coconut cookies, charcoal, faintly wine, and paint.

Definitely Maman.

Castiel opened his eyes in showing that he was here, and alive (although the steady heart beats could've shown the same thing).

His name was repeated again, this time by Anna, who was holding his hand as she sat on the bed. The long sleeves of the green sweatshirt- his green sweatshirt- pooled around her skinny and bracelet-covered wrists.

He looked back from her to Maman, not speaking.

"Castiel? Please say something," She begged in French.

He sat up, looking around the hospital room, then down at his arm that was in a sling. He looked up at his mother and elder sister, "Where's Raphael?" He croaked out, his voice scratchy like his arms and face.

His mother collapsed in tears at the words of her dead son


	2. Chapter 2

"Alright, Cassie, what do you want?" Gabriel asked, looking over at his brother. The pastry shoppe was lit dimly, lit warmly. Castiel examined the pastries before he pointed to his favourite. A type of viennoiserie; pain au chocolat. Gabriel nodded and recited the order to the clerk, who gathered the breads and pastries, placing them in boxes and bags. Pulling out cash, Gabriel thanked the clerk and paid, Castiel helping to carry everything out to the car.

Silence filled the car as Gabriel started it up. Castiel leaned forwards to turn off the radio as Gabriel had turned it on.

Arguments were void that day on the way home.

Castiel moved his hands in a flutter of symbols, but Gabriel cut him off.

"I don't want to learn it."

Castiel dropped his hands, looking back out the window.

"I don't want to learn it because I want to hear your annoying-ass little brother voice, again, okay?"

Castiel looked down.

"Cassie, listen. I think that you just need to find someone."

Castiel turned Gabriel's head to look back at the road.

The older, yet shorter, brother didn't say anything more as they drove home.

Silence carried when they got home.

The nanny, a short and stout woman with pale skin, came to the door and took some of the pastries and bread, and led Castiel into the kitchen with them. Gabriel accompanied his brothers upstairs.

Castiel helped put away the bread as the previously mentioned nanny, Aadi, set out the pastries on plates, Castiel writing his siblings names on paper. The paper was folded and placed next to the respectable pastry.

_Zachariah, Michael, Lucifer, Naomi, Gabriel, Anna, Castiel._

He capped the marker then folded the papers over. Aadi took them out and set them down on the dining room table. Castiel took his as she called them all down. The youngest brother slipped up into his room, setting his pastry down on a nightstand before laying down on his made bed, staring at the ceiling.

Castiel used to be proud of his room.

It used to have clean, deep blue walls that reminded him of the sea. White trim and a matching ceiling. The bed was dark mahogany and the duvet and sheets were white to match the curtains and accent the walls. Flooring was wooden like the bed.

Now his room walls were covered in prints of artwork he liked, and art that he had done. It hung on canvas and poster, paper and newsprint. Anything he could get his hands on. What was left of the dark walls had holes from punches or glass had been thrown to have it shard.

He kept the shards in a drawer that he kept locked.

Castiel, now fifteen, ran a hand over his ever-growing scruff. He wished for the millionth time it didn't grow so fast, that it hadn't grown, and he knew he'd have a shadow present always.

He ran a hand and pulled a bit at his hair. He sat up again and shrugged his leather jacket off, revealing a saddening collection of tally marks and words on his arms that were slowly scarring over. Biting his lip, he pulled his shirt over his head, letting the red tank top discard itself on the floor of his room as he stood and moved to a wall. The picture stared back at him.

The man- or woman- in orange cowered from a larger green man with long, white fingernails and black scraggly hair. There was broken walls and a couple of hills. The trees tangled like kudzu and the leaves were circles of purples and whites, much like grapes.

If you had asked Castiel what he liked so much about the painting, he would shrug and not talk to you. He had a lot to say on the piece, but he could never bring himself to.

Not since Raphael had died in that car accident.

He made his way back to the bed with his sketchbook. The music went up, blocking out anything else that dared to interfere as he stared at the pictures, trying to find something to draw, something new, something human.

Something to forget about the pain.

Normally it's Anna. Anna with her fiery red hair and sundresses, collarbones and strapless tops.

The redhead was reluctant to come to his mind.

Pencil lead left marks in the paper from tapping as he thought.


End file.
